Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 2 of 2]
With his Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader

By Benjamin Franklin

Page 29

inclination,wrong his neighbours, and eat, and drink, &c., to excess.

But perhaps it may be said, that by the word _virtue_ in the aboveassertion is meant merit; and so it should stand thus: Withoutself-denial there is no merit, and the greater the self-denial thegreater the merit.

The self-denial here meant must be when our inclinations are towardsvice, or else it would still be nonsense.

By merit is understood desert; and when we say a man merits, we meanthat he deserves praise or reward.

We do not pretend to merit anything of God, for he is above ourservices; and the benefits he confers on us are the effects of hisgoodness and bounty.

All our merit, then, is with regard to one another, and from one toanother.

Taking, then, the assertion as it last stands,

If a man does me a service from a natural benevolent inclination, doeshe deserve less of me than another, who does me the like kindnessagainst his inclination?

If I have two journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, butboth perform a day's work equally good, ought I to give the latter themost wages?

Indeed, lazy workmen are commonly observed to be more extravagant intheir demands than the industrious; for, if they have not more for theirwork, they cannot live as well. But though it be true to a proverb thatlazy folks take the most pains, does it follow that they deserve themost money?

If you were to employ servants in affairs of trust, would you not bidmore for one you knew was naturally honest than for one naturallyroguish, but who has lately acted honestly? For currents, whose naturalchannel is dammed up till the new course is by time worn sufficientlydeep and become natural, are apt to break their banks. If one servant ismore valuable than another, has he not more merit than the other? andyet this is not on account of superior self-denial.

Is a patriot not praiseworthy if public spirit is natural to him?

Is a pacing-horse less valuable for being a natural pacer?

Nor, in my opinion, has any man less merit for having, in general,natural virtuous inclinations.

The truth is, that temperance, justice, charity, &c., are virtues,whether practised with or against our inclinations; and the man whopractises them merits our love and esteem; and self-denial is neithergood nor bad but as it is applied. He that denies a vicious inclination,is virtuous in proportion to his resolution; but the most perfect virtueis above all temptation; such as the virtue

"[i-103] Though Franklin
may have stopped short of theoretical science,[i-104] he was not only
interested in making devices but also in discovering immutable natural
laws on which he could base his mechanics for making the world more
habitable, less unknown and terrifying.

_Saint Monday_ is generally as duly kept by our working people as
_Sunday_; the only difference is, that, instead of employing their time
cheaply at church, they are wasting it expensively at the alehouse.

_'
"But the Inconsistence that strikes me the most is, that
between the Name of your City, Philadelphia, (_Brotherly
Love_,) and the Spirit of Rancour, Malice, and _Hatred_ that
breathes in its Newspapers.

They therefore
deferr'd their Answer till the Day following; when their Speaker began,
by expressing their deep Sense of the kindness of the Virginia
Government, in making them that Offer; "for we know," says he, "that you
highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in those Colleges, and that
the Maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very
expensive to you.